hold not the wolf by the ears
by Fogs of Gray
Summary: "It's all a bit tragic, isn't it?" He blinks, bites his cheek. "I could live a hundred lifetimes in a hundred different worlds, and I'd still end up here, chasing ghosts."
1. hold not the wolf by the ears

I managed to scrape together a quick study on family dynamics. Not an AU, per say, just as canon as any of my plots attempt to be. I attempted a longer title and the writing style is new to me, but I hope it turned out well?

Disclaimer: Characters are not mine

* * *

It's 3:17 in the morning when someone starts pounding on the door.

Macon knows the exact time; it's damn near burned into his retinas from the bedside table alarm clock. The irradiated red numbers flash behind his eyelids through each blink as he snaps his book shut and glances towards the door. It couldn't be a Caster—any Caster who looked for him wouldn't think of this motel or hesitate long enough to knock—and if someone from the Blood Pack were on his trail the pitted metal would be shattered, or, he supposed, Hunting's brood would be fond of staining it crimson. Mortals wouldn't be about this early—he didn't smell smoke and there wasn't the scream of sirens—and he could practically hear the hell that would brake loose in the hallway if the _person_ didn't stop knocking.

In all honesty, he should have gone further. The near miss in Florence County was still raw in the back of his mind. Hunting's slew of idiots could follow a trail, at least, and Macon hadn't made it more than ten miles before his hands had started shaking and his trust in Traveling had diminished completely. What was left of the gasoline was spent on burning the stolen car on the side of the road with miniscule artifacts in it—a fob from Milan that ticked quietly enough he almost forgot it counted down his seconds and a notebook that held scribbles he thought about enough times they were sharper than the pen could recreate them—his clothes were dropped off at a house that vaguely reminded him of Gatlin. Consequently, the house also yielded a decent change of clothing, albeit not his preferred attire, and, when he wandered to the motel blocks towards the highway, the front deskman hadn't questioned his acquisition of a small room, even when he overpaid by nearly fifty dollars.

Instead of listening to any of the warnings pounding beneath his ribs, he crosses the six paces it takes to reach the door in a series of stumbling, shuffling strides and hopes to holy hell whoever is waking up his neighbors isn't out for his blood.

He doesn't bother with staring through the peephole's fisheye lens long enough to recognize who is on the sidewalk, instead opting for tugging the chain lock out of the door and throwing wide the pitted door. Admittedly, it takes him longer than it should to recognize the overcoat is similar but new and the hair is in a braid, not a ponytail, but he sighs in relief anyway when the form is recognized. "Hells and heavens," he murmured.

Leah's body casts a long shadow into the room.

She looks uncomfortable, cagey, hands shoved into the pockets of her overcoat and not quite shuffling from foot to foot. She's sporting a split lip, and there's a smear of coal on her jaw. She attempts to offer a smile, but it manifests like a nervous tic of her cheek. The harsh light emphasized the hollowness of her cheeks, the starkness of the shadows beneath her eyes, and the exuberance harbored within them. He himself can't be much better with the only light behind him being the flickering of a dim lamp.

She doesn't say anything, predictably.

So Macon does. "Where did the wind take you this time?" he offers, the question rhetorical, a greeting more than anything else. It's been about two months since he's seen Leah, but he learned years ago not to bother worrying—or looking for her—when she drops off the grid.

When her lips only tighten, he turns, shuffling back into the blessed near-darkness of the room, hears Leah catch the door before it can swing shut. The light scratch of her pulling the laces of her boots open breaks the silence.

"Heard the Pack's storehouse had problems," Leah says, and Macon's exhausted, but he manages his knife-edge smile; Leah can act like she doesn't care all she wants, but she's never been able to not keep tabs on him.

"Good take, no injuries." Macon sits down on the remade bed, facing her. "Well, Barclay sprained his ankle, but that happened after we left the radius." Which, to be fair, if there were ever a good time to sprain your ankle, Kent found it. "But, you know," he says, gesturing vaguely.

"How it is," Leah supplies, expression softer now. "I do."

"Barclay's on his way to Barbados."

"You stayed behind to…?"

"Wrap up." He glances to the clock again, then to the open book on the cheap desk.

"Wrap up—"

"Permanently." Macon meets her stare. "You would have been a beneficial addition," he continues, raising an eyebrow.

"You could have brought Obidias," Leah points out, never to be guilt-tripped—never to be manipulated, and that's why she's good at what she does, why Macon has never been able to take the animal at the center of Leah, the wild, headstrong thing within her, and grab hold and control it, not for any sweet-talking or bribes or threats in the world.

"He had more important matters to attend to."

Leah shakes her head, chuckles. "It took a while to find you." She gestures to the motel room at large. "This is very…"

"Very," Macon echoes.

"Different. For you."

"There's a distinct lack of alcohol, cigars, or botanicals," Macon rattles off, swinging his feet up on the bed and leaning back. He has the money for extravagance, but, sometimes, extravagance is exhausting. Sometimes a place off the highway where you have to check the mattress for bed bugs is comforting.

(Sometimes it reminds you of years ago, when you're fresh-faced, twenty-something and consulting a younger woman whose Cajun accent hasn't bled out yet, whose eyes are the same shade of hearse glass as yours, who hasn't killed a man but wants to, asks to, needs to.)

Leah stands off to the side in a way that could be considered awkward if it'd been anybody else. Macon glances at her form. "New overcoat," he admonishes, and it coaxes a laugh from Leah, who rolls her eyes, shrugs out of the coat, and joins Macon on top of the sheets. It's smaller than they're used to; then again, whenever these occurrences manifest, Macon takes the floor or the couch. Leah's body heat radiates out from where she's propped up against the headboard, left leg pressed up against Macon's right, black denim to some cheap polyester-blend. She smells a little like gasoline, like cigarette smoke, like gun oil.

And she's stiff, like she tends to be, like she has to take some time to remember how to stop being the person she becomes when she leaves, like she needs to familiarize herself to this life, to work passed the block in her throat and file down the rough edges of herself to fit back snug in this broken jigsaw of existing.

"Europe," she offers finally.

Macon thinks about that. It's farther than he thought Leah had gone. "For?"

"Loose ends. Clear my head."

Meaning Leah had business to take care of and then took some time to play lone wolf, to take refuge in long days of silence, in single-man jobs, in boxy motel rooms probably not unlike this one. She's never been gone for two months before, but to be fair, the last time she'd done this was nearly a year ago.

Macon doesn't understand the appeal of isolation, but he knows Leah needs it sometimes, like how Obidias needs it, like how Lena can't stand it. It's quiet for a moment, the easy, familiar silence starts to lull Macon to remembrance, but Leah shifts over and leans down and kisses his cheek before he loses himself. He relaxes the way he does only at the end of a decent night, when his gaze has skipped heads on instinct, when his quarry is in his hands or on the floor.

Last time, it wasn't like this. Last time, Leah showed up and everything was off, tension crackled, twisted, jittered up his spine in a terrible way. Macon doesn't remember who threw the first punch, but he remembers the moment of shift, of something sparking in Leah eyes and Macon stepping towards her while she slid down the wall of his study, memories sliding down her cheeks and sobs tearing her throat, the door still open to the cracked stone confines of the Tunnels.

Sometimes that's what it takes for things to go back to normal.

Leah leaves and Leah returns, and they yell or cry or both, or go on a drive, or feign platonic affection in some dodgy motel room on the outskirts of Effingham.

What they don't do is talk about it. And that's good. That's easy. Uncomplicated. He'd rather act like they'd been siblings for the entirety of their lives, that she had grown up with him, than take his jumbled mess of thoughts and try to hammer them out into something coherent.

When she leans back, Leah has her hand on Macon's arm, the blank pale of her fingers in stark contrast to the dark shirt Macon's wearing. She pauses, her fingers tense lightly, rise to brush close to his eyes.

"You've put up with the stress remarkably."

"Adequately," he corrects. "Time still passes when you aren't here, Leah." It's the wrong thing to say, Macon knows, even before the syllables cut off his tongue. The subsequent stretching beats of silence confirm it. He's great at keeping Leah's eyes off his cards, but hells if he doesn't show his hand at the worst moment every time. Eventually, he looks away from the blank wall, towards her.

Leah regards him carefully. "You missed me?" she asks, and it'd be the perfect mix of humor and nonchalance if it weren't for the caution in her eyes, in the way her fingers press into the small wrinkles formed around his eyes.

There's nothing Macon can say to that question without opening up one can of worms or another, so he closes his eyes. _Of course I did, you dolt, there's some sort of emotion in this mock-camaraderie. I wouldn't be here if I didn't care for the state of your being, let alone if you were still on this plane of existence. _The words were simple enough; the implications were not.

And soon Leah's talking again, breath quick and light, babbling about how crooked the streets are or how she met a man who pronounced her name wrong, called her beautiful, and she made sure he knew she was more than that much, while Macon listens quietly as a subtle reminder—you're back, you're here, you're somewhat safe, don't stray for so long.

* * *

It's just past seven in the morning when Leah's words run out, sunlight streaming in through the thin curtains and prodding Macon slowly into reluctant awareness. The weight dipping the mattress beside him is an anchor, is a reason to sit up and press the heels of his hands against his eyes.

Sometime during the night, Leah changed into a flannel two sizes too large for her. She's awake, the trashy paperback crime thriller Macon picked up a couple days ago open in her lap next to his notebook. She hasn't slept—Macon would bet anything on that—and won't, probably, until they're back at Ravenwood that night, the familiar chaos of three children and an overgrown pup running amok giving her enough security to keep her eyes shut. He's sure he'll find her curled up in a bathtub tomorrow morning, a childhood habit she hasn't broken.

(Macon was able to admit a long time ago that nothing feels like home quite like any place where Leah, Lena, and him are together. It's going to take Leah a while to get to that point, he thinks, even if Leah keeps tabs on him when she's four thousand miles away.)

Macon leans against her lightly. "How long?" _How long will you be gone this time? How long will it take you to remember you despise stability? How long until I'm not enough to drag you back? How long until we can act like you're happy to be back at Ravenwood?_

Leah hums quietly. "After you take a shower?" Leah prompts, closing the book and raising an eyebrow at him.

"—she says, unaware that she's a hypocrite who smells like the inside of a gas tank."

Leah smacks him with the paperback, but she's grinning her half smile, and Macon convinces himself that's a victory. "To think you're supposed to be a gentleman."

"And you were supposed to be the charming, delicate flower."

"Well, neither of us quite lived up to expectations, did we?"

"Expectations are investments in disappointment, Leah," Macon allows, climbing out of bed and stretching his shoulder across his chest as he walks to the bathroom. He's not even sure there are towels for them both, but he can't find it in himself to care.

"No," says Leah, "to wish is to hope, and to hope is to expect," and then she laughs, chuckles, when Macon sends an astounded glance her way. "You're not the only one fond of classics, brother-mine."

Macon lets the sound of the water against battered tile devolve into white noise, stripping out of the few remaining articles of clothing he's got on as the mirror steams up.

"We could skip breakfast," comes Leah's voice, muted through the thin wall and the sound of the shower, but Macon can hear the cautious exhaustion in her voice. "We could just go straight home."

And Macon steps into the shower, water matting his hair down flat to his head and drilling a staccato massage into his shoulders. He thinks about Ravenwood, about the fork in the road, about the magnolia blooms, and about the three sets of eager eyes and one wagging tail waiting for them to walk through the front door.

Once the water runs clean and his dull headache dissipates, he steps out and dresses quickly. He turns the water off—Leah rarely figures out what knobs are what before dousing herself in frigid water and cursing wildly, he figures he deserves some sort of compensation for last night—and glances out the cracked door.

She's leaning back in the office chair the motel provided, precariously tilting towards the floor. Her hair is falling out of its braid—he can't deny his fingers itch to tug it into her trademark ponytail—and her eyes are closed, her chapped lips open slightly. "It's all a bit tragic, isn't it?" He blinks, bites his cheek. "I could live a hundred lifetimes in a hundred different worlds, in any version of reality, and I'd still end up here, chasing ghosts."

"As opposed to a life of bravery and sacrifice?" _As opposed to a normal life where our mother didn't run away for fear of murder? As opposed to a life where storms were simply storms and sixteen was a chance to give freedom, not a fate?_

"As opposed to a life of choosing paint colors and names." She sighs. "Don't let it end like this, hm? Rewrite the Ravenwood name, please." Then, the chair crashes to its natural position, she stands, meets his eyes in a sudden act of forced happiness. "We could skip breakfast," she repeats. He nods.

"We could," he says, eventually, once he's somewhat sure in the line of her mouth, in the form of her hands. Dimly, he notices her boots are half-tied on her feet; her cheeks are stained with blush. He notices she's lost the stiffness; the set of her shoulders is relaxed, comfortable, trusting. She fixes his collar with nimble fingers; the smell of gasoline makes his head spin again, but he buries the notion. "Let's go home."


	2. hear not the secrets we keep

I'll entertain a second chapter, but I have to admit the first one was better on all accounts. You'll probably figure it out, but we have a time jump to when Macon returns at the end of Beautiful Darkness, I believe. If all goes terribly, pretend this chapter wasn't published. :)

(Also, there's a liberal quoting of Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It's mentioned the quotes are from him in the text, but I'll clarify anyway.)

All disclaimers apply.

* * *

The ticking is causing Macon to careen towards insanity.

There's an itch in the back of his head, an irk, that the insistent pendulum hardly aids with. The children wouldn't mind its absence. Boo dozes by its feet, but the addition of another chair would remedy that soon enough. If the Sheers—a noticeable tremor shakes Macon's hands—feel the need to get involved, he doubts the swinging of a metal disk is be their sole complaint. In fact, the only soul who cares is the cause behind the rushing of water beside him and the fact he's currently homing himself in his bathroom next to his catatonic sister instead of in his bed.

Given, he should have realized what would have happened. How she would have reacted, how childish habits would return. He's seen it enough times in Lena—from the tantrums to the thunderstorms—to know when these fits come about. Disappearing for months after that god-awful day in February, being buried in the same prison their mother had fled, not being there to wipe her tears, and appearing back before the summer could close wasn't in either of their itineraries, despite what the silence beside him suggested.

Instead of realizing, of course, he had planted his feet in the sand on that island and stood against Abraham while his heart beat against his ribs. Instead of consoling, he had endangered not only himself but also his family. Instead of helping, he placed a target on his newly delicate body. Instead of catching up with his sister, she had retreated into the bathroom.

Which is how he finds himself here, leaning his head against the wall, locking himself in a bathroom with his newly mute sister.

The bathroom hasn't changed since he last saw it. The window is still sending fragmented prisms of light across the floor; admittedly, that was twenty years ago and his eyes were looking for Dark Caster marks, Cubi signals, not splits in windowpanes. The sink is still a relic of when Jonas—Silas's father, not Abraham's brother, Jonah—wandered the halls in his insomnia-induced haze, chipped and stained. If the bath had been converted to a shower, he wouldn't have been surprised, but Barclay was never too keen on changing much more than the angle Macon's sparse pictures were tilted at, which was why the tub had remained simply that. Delphine claimed the manor made her head spin—too many ghosts, she would mutter, too many memories, and Macon was hard-pressed to deny he didn't feel the same pressure in his bones—and the children were more tied up with their impending fate than the state of fixtures. The tiles are still the same worn color of bone, but the grout has darkened tremendously around the hexagonal tiles since they were first laid. The cabinets in front of him had been adorned with deep gauges and crooked hinges, still are. Although, sometime during his time here, Macon has spent a night unscrewing them and later setting them ablaze, confident the house seemed less claustrophobic without them.

The door, in particular, could easily be unlocked, if Leah had the inclination to test Macon's feeble attempts at a cast. The water is running in the sink, yes, but Leah's fully clothed in her worn-down overcoat with missing buttons on the pockets and dyed denim. He can't imagine her with her hair up; she's already cramped for space in that basin without the discomfort of arching her neck to keep the tie from digging into her skull. He hasn't had the courage to look at her yet, knowing he'd find dark eyes staring back at him.

The clock chimes. Come to think of it, bashing that clock in would leave more damage on his person than he needs to deal with; he needs to keep Cubi at bay, which is work enough in a healthy state. The idea causes his fingers to itch.

Macon's head falls against his knees. He covers his ears, sighs. His cheek twitches; his jaw tightens. He inhales slowly and run the tips of his fingers through his hair. He raises his head, leans it against the hard tile of the wall. His hands fall from his hair. His tongue weighs heavy, checks the back of his teeth. His eyes close.

Then, he speaks.

He talks about the time Leah chased after him and ended up knee deep in mud. The groundwater was high that year and neither of them knew the patch Leah had tripped onto was as saturated as it was. Her voice was shrill with fear; his name was uttered before she yelled for their mother. When Macon had managed to lever her out of the mud, they had walked back to the house, Macon barefoot as he had given his shoes to Leah. Their mother had found Leah on the counter by the sink and Macon scrubbing furiously at the muddy footprints on the floorboards. She had ruffled his hair, murmured in her Cajun, and bandaged Leah's skinned knees.

(He omits the fact he heard their mother crying that night, alone in her room, when Leah was curled up next to him in her bedroom across the hall.)

He talks about when Leah became a hobby mechanic, about when she nearly lit the shed aflame. When, outside Obidias's house, the one he had before he disappeared to Barbados and the one Macon took refuge in when he could manage to stay away from Ravenwood, Leah had thrown the door open with such force the walls rattled and a dark smudge of a fist accompanied the peeling wallpaper.

(He doesn't mention that smudge of soot is probably still on those decaying walls.)

He talks about the weeks they had spent together pouring over research when they could. She hated the language, didn't understand why the letters looked like others, why the text was so long-winded. He hated the weather, how it rained every single day, poured against the windows as though hammering home the fact they couldn't escape. Upon finding the answer, she had stood so quickly the heavy chair fell, the dust had vibrated, and, before Macon could brace himself, she had her arms around his neck, a kiss on his cheek, a giggle on her lips.

(He swallows the fact that was the last time besides Effingham that she'd been so engrossed in happiness she'd forgotten the set boundaries.)

He doesn't talk about when there was a fire in the field not a mile from here. He doesn't talk about the ash in his mouth or the fact when he blinks he sees flames licking the sky or the idea that every breath he takes causes hysteria to jump in his chest. He doesn't talk about the clarity, about the darkness, about the tightness in his chest as his lungs gasped for air, as his eyes stung and his mind faltered.

When the form in the bathtub doesn't respond, he changes tactics. His words run the gauntlet of the classics he knew as a child. The words are familiar, a ghost from when Leah was still afraid of storms, still innocent enough to come running to his bed in the middle of the night, when he thought closet doors would save him. Syllables his childish palate hadn't considered tangible, phrases he wouldn't understand until years later, start clipping off his tongue. He starts with articulating the Barrie—"to die would be an awfully big adventure" runs too close to the vein—then abruptly stops. The silence presses heavily against his ears. The clock tolls. The water rushes unbearably close to him.

"What adventures did you find while you were away?"

For a moment, his mouth can't form words. The thoughts come in rushes, in thinly spread lies. "I found my ghosts," he manages.

A low hum comes from the tub. "For months?"

"Ravenwood has a way of collecting them." He can almost hear her nod. "This proxy war hasn't helped my standings, of course." _Neither has dying,_ he hears in the shell of his ear. A lull forms in the conversation.

She doesn't speak for what feels like an eternity. Macon's eyelids start to close for longer than a blink; the ache in the back of his head dulls. Before she speaks, she laughs quietly; the sound bounces off the walls pleasantly.

"Macon, you're _dead_."

His shoulders flinch. His lips twitch in a jittery smile. "I suppose I am."

A hollow, rough chuckle escapes the tub and turns into a sob; Macon's eyes glance to where the moonlight touches the chip in the porcelain. "I saw your ashes, Macon. I stood over your grave."

The silence descends again like a broken bird. He can't work passed the cork in his throat, passed the clumsy words he'll offer, and he doesn't until she speaks again. "I was prepared for Lena to go Dark. I was prepared for the decimation of Ravenwood. I expected the looks." A muffled curse bubbles. "But the _memories_, Macon…" she fades off.

"I went to Europe, again. I chased our ghosts, too, except they won't come back to haunt us this time." She takes a breath, sighs brokenly. "Do you remember Effingham?"

His eyelids tighten. "How could I forget, storm braver?" The memories are hazy at best, but Macon remembers gasoline in his nose, stolen clothes on his body, and a braid that should have been undone.

"I think about it every day." He manages a small frown. "We're…there's no way we're going to fix this, is there?"

"I'm afraid we're anchored in." His voice is lower. "No amount of miracles could move us now." He swallows. "Grace," he forces, "is the undoing of everything we've done to ourselves." He pauses, exhales. "These last few months have taught me that much, at least."

* * *

During the night, he decides to join Leah, after listening to her constant babble of how it'd be like they were children again.

Curled up against her isn't as cramped as it could be. His chin rests on her head, her forehead rests against his chest, where his heart beats slowly. The comfort is oddly sentimental. It reminds him of open windows and tatting, of Spanish moss and jasmine.

"'You know, you're a little complicated after all.'" He bares his teeth in a smile. Oh, yes, Fitzgerald.

"'Oh, no,'" he quotes hastily. "'No, I'm not really—I'm just a—I'm a whole lot of different simple people.'" She giggles into the silence. He can't help finding the sound empty.

(The last time she quoted Tender is the Night, she sobbed tears into his jacket, ruined his button up and smudged her mascara.)

"You died," she repeats, then, as if it makes this situation any more real. "Did you think about Lena?" Macon hears the implied question. _Did you think about me? Did you think about your sister who spent days inside? Who spent nights behind a practiced mask? Who disappeared to Europe in a repeat performance?_

"Every day," he affirms. _Every hour, every minute, carved into my bones. How could I ever forget? How could I forget you, you passionate, fragmentary girl?_

She nods once, presses against his chest. He was wrong about the ponytail after all; the set was lower than normal, droopier. Her boots laid clumsily on his dress pants. "How long do you think we have, before?"

"Before?" He prompts hesitantly.

"Before," she offers quietly. It doesn't take much time, even in Macon's sleep-addled brain, to connect the dots.

"A few months, at the least." His estimate hits his heart heavily, even as he utters it. "Abraham will be quick as ever, especially with Hunting on his side."

She's mute for a moment, two. "Will Ravenwood answer the call, when it comes?"

"Undoubtedly, Leah. This is our war."

"No, it's not," she insists, her voice bouncing off the walls. "It's a proxy war. Ravenwood doesn't need to bury anymore of its kind for the sake of this."

"And for the sake of the Casters?" She stills. "Execution or suicide, Leah?"

"Suicide," she answers confidently.

"This is certainly that much." He closes his eyes. "If Cubi can't stop Abraham, how can Casters, even if it is the majority of them?"

Her cheeks twitch. "They're calling you a prophet, in the Tunnels." Her voice hits him softly. "When'd you run away and become religious, Macon?"

The silence roars like waves. Leah pushes closer to him. His consciousness wavers.

* * *

Macon awakes to dim light and Leah's fingers curling into his jacket, against his skin, as if he'll disappear during the night. He's positive she hasn't slept. He's also sure his legs are going to complain about the prolonged position when he stands, but he can't find the energy to care.

Her fingernails are painted, for once. They gleam dark in the morning light, in the chill of dawn. Her dark crown is bowed beneath his, still, her breath warm against him. Her pocketknife digs into his hip. Her hair constricts his breathing. It doesn't have finesse. It doesn't have grace. It is real, though, and Macon can feel the tenseness in his heart begin to thaw.

"Remember me like this, please," she murmurs.

"'You'll always be like this to me.'"

"'Oh, no; but promise me you'll remember. I'll be different, but, somewhere lost inside me there'll always be the person I am today.'" He blinks, closes his eyes.

There's a faint rustle of fabric. She'll be gone soon, disappeared to wherever the hell she wants to go, to gasoline and mud, to cramped streets and old books, wherever she feels like the world can't crush her. He'll still be here, head against cool porcelain, looking through windows, wanting an escape. For a moment, though, for an exhale and a sigh, he believes she'll be there when he wakes.

It hurts worse than dying, in a perverse way.

* * *

When he opens his eyes again, the sun is higher. The body next to him has disappeared. The window above the bathtub has been opened. For a brief, paralyzing moment, he swears she's run off again; he sits up quickly enough his back cracks terribly and he bangs his kneecap on the porcelain, which is followed by a rough, loud curse.

Then he sees her sitting on the chair that was left in here whenever the lights had been taken out. Sometime during the night she's fixed her makeup—a quick glance tells him where the eyeliner had ended up, smudged on his shirt—and has retied her ponytail into its high regularity, where it swung with each step. Her lips spread in her ever-present light smile, as though a pure-hearted laugh will escape her at any moment.

His hands curl on the porcelain edge; the chip digs into his palm. Dim sunlight dances across the back of his hand. "Sleeping in bathtubs, Macon?" Her voice takes on her original drawl, heavy Cajun and resounding memories.

Her coat has been readjusted, retied. His glasses, the ones he left on the counter when he locked them in here, are perched on her nose, wire frames and wide eyes. She flashes her teeth, covers her mouth. When his brow furrows, she shakes her head. "What would your mother say?"

He can't find it in himself to answer.


End file.
